celebrity gossip, academic style

The Character Actor is not a star, per se, although he can be the “star” of a show, or movie, or play. The Character Actor can PLAY star — with its attendant gravitas, pomp, allure — but is NOT a priori star.

But let’s define terms a bit more (with apologies to those who have read this sort of thing before — you can skim to the part where I start talking about character actors):
*An ACTOR is someone who appears on screen or on stage. He or she acts. What we know about this person is largely limited to his TEXTUAL performance — e.g. what he/she does, says, how he/she looks, etc. in the texts, on screen.

*A STAR also acts — or is famous for another skill, such as playing basketball. At the same time - and this is crucial - this person’s personal life (his/her LIFE outside the text, e.g. “extra-textual” life) has been made accessible to the public for consumption.

*An actor can become a star. Recall that George Clooney used to be “just an actor” on Facts of Life.

*An actor can be very famous, but that doesn’t make him/her a star. Robert De Niro is an actor, and almost universally known. But he is not a star, at least not by the definition above. Morgan Freeman is an actor, not a star. Laura Linney is an actor. It all depends on knowledge — so in Britain, where her marriage to Taylor Hackford is more publicized, we might consider Helen Mirren a star, whereas she’s an actress stateside.

These actors — and that’s the term I use for them, for lack of a better one — are known almost wholly for their appearances on-screen. Now, I’m sure that someone will argue with me about Morgan Freeman — he’s one of the greatest actors of our time! Everyone loves him! But can you tell me a single thing about his extra-textual life? Okay, maybe if you’re really plugged in you’ll know that he was involved with Prom Night in Mississippi, or, if you’ve really done your research, you might know that he’s had an affair with someone who’s kinda sorta his step-grand-daughter, but you know what? I bet you totally didn’t even know that. I didn’t even know that until one of my students from last Spring insisted on doing a star study on him and discovered the fact that not only had he had this affair, but that virtually no one had picked up the story. Now, this could be because, as KW of Dear Black Woman has pointed out, black gossip doesn’t sell, but it’s also because he’s a.) old, b.) has always been “old” in the American imagination, which is another way of saying de-sexualized, and c.) he’s beloved for his screen personas, whether in Driving Mrs. Daisy or Shawshank or whatever, and his personal life has never been the source of his likability or charisma.

*A crucial caveat: Stars are no guarantee of financial success. Some stars, like Will Smith and Brad Pitt, are somewhat reliable film-openers. Maybe we’ll add Nicolas Cage? Maybe? I mean, I know that he married Lisa Marie Presley and has a kid named Helicopter Robot or something like that….and recently had to sell 12 of his 52 mansions, so I guess there’s an interest (just not from me) in his personal life. But Brangelina is not an assured money-maker, and George Clooney never opens films big, unless he has Brad Pitt to support him.

To reiterate: Stars aren’t stars because they make money. They’re stars because their unified images — the combination of their textual and extra-textual personas — seems to embody something pertinent, something that speaks to what it means to be a person in a certain place during a certain time period. This is, at least in part, why it is often difficult for the biggest of stars to break free of a single type of role, or that some are accused of “playing themselves” in all of their films. These stars’ images are so indelible to maintaining popularity that when they deviate from that image, the text either flops or seems off. (In the case of Julia Roberts, you can trace it to hairstyle, especially in the ’90s: the films in which she had curly wild hair, which seemed to bespeak the Pretty Woman persona that truly launched her star, did well, while differently-hairstyled Roberts bombed. See especially: Mary Reilly, Michael Collins, Something to Talk About, I Love Trouble). This can also be true of a star’s extra-textual actions: an event is only deemed “scandal” if it challenges societal norms and/or challenges one of the foundational elements of the star’s image. Again, for many of you, this is familiar ground.

Which brings me to the meat of the post: THE CHARACTER ACTOR. The character actor can, theoretically, be quite famous. We might call De Niro a character actor, especially in his early films — what was he doing save embodying a wide variety of roles, making any unified reading of his image or picture personality impossible? De Niro is not a great example, however, because he often, or always, plays lead, whereas a character actor is cast in a supporting or peripheral role.

Character actors are so-termed because of their ability to play “character” roles: people who are weird, kooky, distinguished in some way, e.g. the funny best friend, the weird preist, the overprotective mother, the psychotic priest, whatever. For a real character actor, there is no single role in which he/she is routinely cast — I wouldn’t call Christopher Walken a character actor, for example, because he can no longer play the role of a nice, loving, totally normal person. His face and voice have been overdetermined through a long string of weird/demonic/self-parodic roles, limiting the number of characters that he can successfully embody. Of course, there are some limits — Laura Linney is a consummate character actor, but it’s somewhat difficult to see her as, I dunno, a serial killer, even though she did do a good “baddie” in Breach.

Under the studio system, character actors were contracted to a single studio the same way that major stars were. They would be shuffled around to fill spots in films pegged to major stars. Some directors, like John Ford or Preston Sturges, would have “stock troupes” that would work in nearly all of his films — John Wayne, of course, but also members of the cast and crew. The set-up mirrors that of a traveling stage troupe, where you selected an actor for his/her ability to play a diverse number of roles as the troupe cycled through plays.

What got me started on this post, though, was the unique ability of the character actor to fully embody a particular role. Unlike the star, whose extra-textual associations inform my reading of him/her, the sheer number of conflicting significations of the character actor somehow cancel each other out, leaving me with a fresh slate of believability. I can’t watch Brad Pitt without thinking of Tristan in Legends of the Fall; I also can’t help but wonder whether or not he and Angelina are making out at that very moment. A star’s appearance is a palimpsest of every interview, photo shoot, piece of gossip, and past role, and asks to be read as such. Oftentimes, this is the key to the role’s success — Hitchcock, for example, famously played on audience expectations of Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart in his later films.

William Demarest, Character Actor and part of the Struges stock troupe

One of my favorite character actors, Edward Everett Horton, seen here admiring Fred Astaire

Take, for example, renowned character actor Steve Buscemi, who is currently KILLING IT as mobster and Atlantic City Prohibition-era kingpin Nucky Thompson on Boardwalk Empire. Buschemi has played many roles — the three that stick out most poignantly for me are in Fargo, The Big Lebowski, and Ghost World, and yours are most likely different.

But he has never played a confident, eloquent, well-respected and sexually potent ladies man, which is the role he’s currently embodying every Sunday night. Yes, I said sexually potent. Even sexy. Even attractive. STEVE BUSCEMI, whose visage is most often likened to that of a gasping trout.

The collars really do it for me.

Buscemi is able to convince the audience of these characteristics for two reasons: 1.) He’s a tremendously skilled actor, but also 2.) He’s a character actor, and while he has played dozens of previous roles, the memory of which should, by all means, undercut the specifics of this character, those roles do not make up a unified whole. They are not a specific image. And they are not reinforced through elements from Buscemi’s private life, as I know nothing, and I mean NOTHING, about who Buscemi is in “real life” other than talented. Buscemi becomes a blank slate onto which the characterization of Nucky takes shape. He becomes who the writers say he is: in this case, powerful, quietly ruthless, a natty dresser, and irresistible.

But what’s the difference between a character actor and a method actor? Between the likes of Buscemi and Brando? I would argue that there’s a spectrum:

*You have Method actors who are capital M Method actors — Brando, most definitely, but also De Niro, Christian Bale, Daniel Day-Lewis. These actors’ images are non-images, which is to say that their image is that of Method Actor, which carries all sorts of significations of tortured genius, pent up creative energy, etc.

*You have actors who may not ascribe to the Method, but who have pinned their images to their ability to embody several seemingly different roles. Russell Crowe is an obvious example; I’d also put Angelina Jolie in this category. For me, these actors resemble the strategy espoused by several stars during the classic era: they cultivate an overarching image, and use the star’s ability to play AGAINST TYPE to reinforce the authenticity of the “real” image. Bette Davis, for example, played “bad” in several films to show that 1.) Her “good” image was the real, authentic one and 2.) Her ability to convincingly transform was evidence of her talent as an actress. I’d also add Hilary Swank, Charlize Theron, Brad Pitt, Robin Williams, Nicole Kidman and anyone who’s “played fat/bad/disabled” to this list. Some of these are stars, some, like Williams, are more actors. But transformation is part of each of their images, unlike, say, Jennifer Aniston, Sandra Bullock, or Katherine Heigl, who really DO always play variations on the same role.

*The actual character actor, who’s usually not even a big enough name to be cast ast the lead in anything but a small independent film or a television show.

For example:

Steve Buscemi

Laura Linney

Patricia Clarkston

John Malkovich (especially before, arguable now?)

Toni Collette

Philip Seymour Hoffman

John Turturro

William H. Macy

Frances McDormand

Paul Giamatti

As I was making this list, I realized that there’s a whole reservoir of actors that I feel uneasy about putting in the purely character actor slot — I mean, what do we do with Mark Ruffalo (who I obviously need to post about one of these days)? But doesn’t he play the same shambly guy every time? Is there a special subset of character actors who still have a unified picture personality….but aren’t stars? What about Julianne Moore? Kate Winslet? Jason Bateman? And why do the Coen Brothers seem to produce so many of them? Is there any entirely different set of “television” character actors — those actors who move across television universes in a way that makes us believe that all shows are linked across space and time? (Yes, I believe so). Is there a hierarchy between film and television character acting? (Yes again). What do we make of the fact that none of these actors are traditionally attractive? (Okay, take Laura Linney off that list). Does oddity of appearance make it “easier” to avoid stardom, or, rather, impossible to achieve stardom, which allows for a career as character actor? Are they industrially valuable because they provide Oscar nominations but can’t demand tremendous salaries?

I wrote this post because I wanted to figure out why and how Steve Buscemi could be sexy, but I suppose the ultimate question is whether the true character actor, of which I believe Buscemi to number, is a rarified, incredibly valuable breed. They also prove resistant to analysis, which, of course, might be their most alluring attribute.

So I need your help, readers. Help make these distinctions clear, or tell me the distinction is not worthwhile. Or tell me your own favorite character actors, and where they might fight in this spectrum.